PEXELS

Search for free images.

Pexels is a website that offers free stock photos. You can search over 300,000 beautiful, high resolution photos on their website to use for your blog or project for personal and commercial use, or even as a desktop wallpaper. The pictures are free to download and no attribution is needed. You can also sign up to save photos you like and download them later. In my case, I found a photo of fall leaves to sample the print quality of the greeting card paper samples.

Beautiful fall leaves from www.pexels.com

ADOBE INDESIGN CC

For the particular greeting card I created, I used a program from Adobe called InDesign CC. (The “CC” stands for Creative Cloud. I’ll talk more about this program and Adobe in my next post). With InDesign, you can create stationery, your resume, eBooks, digital magazines and more. You can download a free trial and follow the tutorials for beginners on their website.

HOW TO MAKE A GREETING CARD IN ADOBE INDESIGN

If you are using Red River Paper’s greeting card stock, we will be making a card that is 7 inches wide and 5 inches tall (landscape) when folded. If you prefer to use letter-size card stock you have laying around or prefer a larger card, you will be making a card that 8.5″ wide and 5.5″ tall card (landscape) when folded.

If you have an image to place on your greeting card design we can begin!

Click New.

In Preset Details, change the “Width” to 7 inches. Change the “Height” to 5 inches. (Or 8.5 and 11)

Uncheck “Facing Pages”.

Change “Margins” to 0 inches.

Click Create.

Create a horizontal guideline by clicking and dragging on the ruler at the top to the canvas and set it to 5 inches. (Or 5.5″ if using letter-size card stock). This is where the greeting card will be folded. The top half of the greeting card will be the back and the bottom half will be the front of the greeting card when folded. Any images hanging over the guideline into the top half of your document will be on the back part of you greeting card when folded. Keep your image below this guideline.

Click on the Rectangle Frame Tool button on the toolbar and create a rectangle (however large you want) on the bottom half of the document.

Click File > Place.

Search for the image you want to place on the card and click Open.

Click on Object > Fitting > Fill Frame Proportionately.

Click on File > Print to print your greeting card.

Fold your greeting card in half.

You have created a greeting card that you can print over and over again! Quickly print a birthday card for a friend if you’re pressed on time to go out and buy one. Make blank note cards of your illustrations to sell on Etsy for extra income. Create a family photo Christmas greeting card to attach to gifts for friends and family. The possibilities are fun and endless!

Hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to leave a comment!